Let’s Get This Class War Started

This is an excellent piece by Chris Hedges. I posted a few paragraphs to give you the gist but it is well worth reading it in it's entirety. We experience and see these things happening everyday.


Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx all began from the premise there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the masses. “Those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority,” Aristotle wrote in “Politics.” “The evil begins at home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are brought up, they never learn, even at school, the habit of obedience.” Oligarchs, these philosophers knew, are schooled in the mechanisms of manipulation, subtle and overt repression and exploitation to protect their wealth and power at our expense. Foremost among their mechanisms of control is the control of ideas. Ruling elites ensure that the established intellectual class is subservient to an ideology—in this case free market capitalism and globalization—that justifies their greed. “The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships,” Marx wrote, “the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”

The blanket dissemination of the ideology of free market capitalism through the media and the purging, especially in academia, of critical voices have permitted our oligarchs to orchestrate the largest income inequality gap in the industrialized world. The top 1 percent in the United States own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent own only 7 percent, as Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in “The Price of Inequality.” For every dollar that the wealthiest 0.1 percent amassed in 1980 they had an additional $3 in yearly income in 2008, David Cay Johnston explained in the article “9 Things the Rich Don’t Want You to Know About Taxes.” The bottom 90 percent, Johnson said, in the same period added only one cent. Half of the country is now classified as poor or low-income. The real value of the minimum wage has fallen by $2.77 since 1968. Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never will. They are the cancer of democracy.

The rise of an oligarchic state offers a nation two routes, according to Aristotle. The impoverished masses either revolt to rectify the imbalance of wealth and power or the oligarchs establish a brutal tyranny to keep the masses forcibly enslaved. We have chosen the second of Aristotle’s options. The slow advances we made in the early 20th century through unions, government regulation, the New Deal, the courts, an alternative press and mass movements have been reversed. The oligarchs are turning us—as they did in the 19th century steel and textile factories—into disposable human beings. They are building the most pervasive security and surveillance apparatus in human history to keep us submissive.

This imbalance would not have disturbed most of our Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers, largely wealthy slaveholders, feared direct democracy. They rigged our political process to thwart popular rule and protect the property rights of the native aristocracy. The masses were to be kept at bay. The Electoral College, the original power of the states to appoint senators, the disenfranchisement of women, Native Americans, African-Americans and men without property locked most people out of the democratic process at the beginning of the republic. We had to fight for our voice. Hundreds of workers were killed and thousands were wounded in our labor wars. The violence dwarfed the labor battles in any other industrialized nation. The democratic openings we achieved were fought for and paid for with the blood of abolitionists, African-Americans, suffragists, workers and those in the anti-war and civil rights movements. Our radical movements, repressed and ruthlessly dismantled in the name of anti-communism, were the real engines of equality and social justice. The squalor and suffering inflicted on workers by the oligarchic class in the 19th century is mirrored in the present, now that we have been stripped of protection. Dissent is once again a criminal act. The Mellons, Rockefellers and Carnegies at the turn of the last century sought to create a nation of masters and serfs. The modern corporate incarnation of this 19th century oligarchic elite has created a worldwide neofeudalism, where workers across the planet toil in misery while corporate oligarchs amass hundreds of millions in personal wealth.

There is no way within the system to defy the demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry or war profiteers. The only route left to us, as Aristotle knew, is revolt.

 

it's not that the rich and powerful are more inclined to resist authority, it's that they have more ability to.

 

Meh, I'll pass on the whole war thing.

 

How did you get Adam smith in there?

 

What? Why not? Don't you want to kill the rich and get their money? They don't pay enough taxes, only far more then the average person. Lets get them in the night! Take their stuff, then give to the government who is full of poor saps like you and me! People who want to tell us how to live and will care for us like a big mommy and daddy. Don't you want to regress back to childhood and join us on the left?

But seriously though vanishingpoint, Rockefeller and Carnegie each did more good for this nation then a thousand of you. Why do you begrudge them?

 

I'm a massive Hedges fan. I can't say I disagree with much of the material you posted although I did read it rather quickly. Given the huge gulf in wealth between the rich and poor in most of the industrialized world, count me in. I would be more than willing to fight and die in a class war than die killing innocents in other countries who are subjected to even more oppression than I am.

 

We will get our pitch forks sharp, and oil up the ol' guillotine. Because that worked out so great last time It was tried.

 

Why not just earn the money? Is killing easier for you then work? Are you the poorest person you know? Why not give that person some of your stuff? Why do you need it all, we all know you have luxury money. (You are on a computer/smart phone after all - please sell it and give the money to the poor and lead by example, rather then go on a looting and killing spree)

 

Good stuff, kill those folks that happen to have more stuff than you. Way to reach the moral high ground.

 

Who cares about results? Surely not us. Lets kill all the rich, and the. Figure out who is going to generate all that revenue later. In the mean time we will have their stuff. Nothing makes a nation more prosperous then slaughtering the most successful people.

(Those were mostly rulers in France. That is different. Here will be killing the people and giving into our ruling class who promises to feed, shelter, entertain, medicate and wipe us).

 

If the "oligarchs" rule through an ideology then that's where the fight should be. War isn't going to do anything but put different oligarchs in power, unless you change the ideology. If the ideology does not agree with reality you will eventually win, reality always manifests itself, no matter how much it is denied.

If the ideology is real, however, then there's nothing to be done about it. Work hard and try to join the oligarchs.

 

Hard work? If we wanted that we would be capitalists. We want money and things produced by capitalism and we don't want to work for it. We want to kill people because murder is easier then a 9 to 5. Rawr!

(It is fun being a lefty for a day but I break character a lot. Just getting in some practice. I am going as a democrat for Halloween. Very scary)

 

The 20th century called, and it wants it's slogans back.

 

I hear you and I agree.

 

I have enough money to live a relatively comfortable life in Canada. I do give to charities and I do work hard for the money I have. I'm not the poorest person I know, however, I'm not far off given the amount of child support I pay. What bothers me is the incredible wealth disparity between the rich and poor even in North America. The figures quoted in the first post are real and are ridiculously unfair. Most importantly the wealth disparity is increasing and has been since Reagan took office. I want some semblance of economic equality. It's fine that the CEO makes 40 times the average worker but nowadays it's 400 times (that's a guess). There is a real dissatisfaction with the status quo right now in the West and that makes the left go further left (like me) and the right go further right (like the Tea Party). I sincerely believe both sides are equally as angry and frustrated, but I think we both have different beliefs on how to solve the problem. One thing I do agree with the Tea Party on is TARP. TARP was the reason for the creation of the Tea Party and was proof to me that the elites would do anything to save their own butts including sacrificing the middle class for their own ends. They should have let the damn banks fail. It would have served the bast***s right for being so crooked. Now it's too late so I go to war.....

 

Actually, it didn't do that badly. France quickly became the most powerful nation in the world, indeed, the first real superpower, and that lasted close to 25 years.

Hell, they probably would have taken over the whole world if not for those pesky British, and stubborn Russians.

And their ideas, well, they pretty much HAVE taken over the world. Most of the world's nations believe mainly in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity nowadays, even the USA ('course they took a lot of that liberty and equality business from us in the first place, but still..)

Yeh...true, France took nearly a century to recover, and some say it never really did, but the first guy to try something new always gets beat up before everybody else copies it.

 

Sorry, can't. They're still in use as they still apply.

 

That is what he said at the beginning of the full article:

“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”

The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in “The Great Gatsby” and his short story “The Rich Boy,” a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable.

 

Too late. You are already a bit part: The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth.

 

This is about the only truthful statement in the portion you posted, and then it is only a half-truth: Ruling elites ensure that the established intellectual class is subservient to an ideology......

The liberal elite are every bit as guilty of this as the demon possessed capitalists. The mis-categorization of the Founding Fathers by both sides is so devoid of reality that I am inclined to believe that most of the "intellectual class" from both parties' knowledge peeked when they were coloring pictures of Washington cutting down a cherry tree in third grade. The US has NEVER practiced free-market capitalism, so the whole piece fails on its faulty premise.

 

The US has come close enough to free-market capitalism to make his premise valid. If you don't want to argue about it then fine. But don't come up with a minor technicality and use that as an excuse to leave.

 

Please enlightened us...

 

Then the poor should rise uP and take from you and your family until you are equal and if you resist they should use force on you and your family to take from you.

typical republican sucker.

So give to government until you are. Don't you believe in equality?

if only more rich people paid the government they could take care of your children for you so you can be free to do what you want when you want. As an adult you should choose whether or not you or the 1% should be responsible for your life choices.

Who did they steal it from? We should give it back to that person or just take it for ourselves. They probably won't give it to us if we ask and they see we live comfortably so lets have government take it by force and give it to us to pay for the things we want in life. Rich people don't deserve their money. We do.

Yeah, if people buy from them it must be because of greed or something. Greed and unfair money isn't real, we should take it. And if you have more then me it is because you are greedy and we should take your stuff too. How much are you paying to government? 30%? 40%? It isn't enough.

People shouldn't be allowed to make more money so they can pay more in the long run to government. Our rulers need money now. A $3 trillion plus a year budget is not nearly enough. We are barely spending $250 billion a year more then when we had the bank and GM bailouts.

i am also a communist comrade. Let the purge of talented people begin. It isnt enough to take from the once, people like that will just make more next year too. They need to pay every year or go into fields they aren't good at. Lets see tom Brady install windows for a change.

no facts or figured needed my friend. Feel this one through. If people tell you that no CEO of a fortune 500 company's salary divided amongst its employees would equal one weeks tax burden for that employee tell them that employee ought to pay more taxes! Our ruling class cares for us and we must care for them for they will make us equal. How is government going to be daddy to your children of they aren't paying enough in taxes and getting greedy about their labor? It is their life, why shouldn't have their work go to
The programs you want?

We just haven't spent enough! Another 4 trillion in extra spending by 2014 will make people confident in the economy again!

scumbag tea party thinks we should go back to before the TARP and OBama $850 billion spending levels were annualized. If we arent spending 2009 crazy money and then some how are we being responsible to the next generation? plus they are racist because they dont agree with Obama.

Yeah lets kill those tea party people for trying to get us back down to levels like we saw before they continued TARP like spending annually. We need to spend far more cash on people loyal to the president. If these people won't give them the cash we should go to war with them to take it. They are so extreme with their politics. But you must make yourself equal first comrade. Sell your computer and buy your weapon or make someone poorer then you closer to you in status. And for banker, don't get me started. Those greedy sons of (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es were buying AAA government backed mortgage securities as part of a low income housing program that was over expanded. When rulers policies go bad the people who they guaranteed should pay for it so ruler doesnt look bad and the people see that their could be negative consequences for their ideas. People don't need to worry themselves with that stuff. They need to concentrate on paying taxes to ruler.

 

Maybe by reading him, which you obviously have not...?

 

Because the rich only take it for themselves. We are on a treadmill, and the faster we run on it, the faster it goes, the faster we have to run just to avoid falling off the back, and the faster the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich ride up on the escalator the treadmill powers.

It's certainly easier for the privileged than work...

Are you really claiming that the slaves on the treadmill can escape it by helping the slowest of their comrades stay on?